I have recently started tying my own leaders, love the way they turn over compared to the knotless tapered leaders I was using.
Anybody have any favorite formulas for a 9' dry fly leader, 4x or 5x tippet. Thanks
Use a Borger Unibody leader.
Borger Unibody Leader
For a 9 ft leader the butt is 5 feet long (including the perfection loop) Maxima Chameleon (brown color) 0.020" (25 lb test) and a 1 ft long transition section of 0.013 (12 lb test) for a base leader length of 6 feet. Then add a 3 ft long supple tippet section and you have a Uni-body George Harvey style dry fly leader. For longer leaders, lengthen the .020" Maxima Chameleon.
The transition section ends in a tippet ring and we will use a 3mm ring for the 4-6 wt rods. The 3 ft of 4X or 5X tippet is tied to the tippet ring for a 9 ft 4X or 5X leader.
The tippet ring allows you to change the tippet length and diameter easily
without shortening the 1 foot long transition section. You can eliminate the tippet ring and tie the tippet directly to the transition but you will lose the ability to quickly change the leader for nymphing vs dry fly fishing as explained below.
For nymphing, Gary uses the following formula. Butt section is 4 ft long and transition is 1 ft long for base of 4 feet. There are two tippet sections. The top tippet section is 4 feet long. The tippet diameter depends on the nymph size. Use 0X for size 2-8, 1X for size 10-14 and 2X for size 16 and smaller.
Tie a 2 mm tippet ring to the end of the upper tippet section and then tie a second 12" section of tippet to this tippet ring. For the diameter of this lower tippet section, divide the hook size by 3. So for a size 16 fly you would use 16/3 = 5X tippet. Place your spit shot above this tippet ring. You can also place a dropper with a second fly on this tippet ring if you want to use dropper rather than tying a second nymph in-line with the first.
You can convert from a nymphing to a George Harvey dry fly leader by changing the terminal tippet design between dry fly and nymphing set up. I keep the various nymphing sections with the second tippet ring coiled and held with a bread wrapper wire tie in separate small zip lock bags. I do the same with the various dry fly tippet sections.
Each front end of the tippets have a perfection loops so I can swap them out with a loop to tippet ring connection. With this system I can quickly to go from a nymphing rig with the proper tippet size to a dry fly rig with the proper tippet size and back again.
You will notice that the 9 foot leader has a 5 ft butt section and Gary's nymphing leader has a 4 ft butt section. I use the 5 ft butt section leader for both dry fly fishing and nymphing. I find the 5 ft works fine for nymphing, and I want a longer leader for my dry flies so I have less change of spooking the fish.
You vary the length of the leader by varying the length of the butt section. by varying the butt section from 5 feet to 11 feet, all with a 1 ft transitions, you have the makings of 9-15 ft leaders. Make these up and carry them in separate zip lock bags and you can make up leaders on the stream bank by just adding tippet .
